This week was wonderful as always! I cannot believe that I´ve already been here in Novo Hamburgo for a month....this transfer gone by so quickly! Sister Oliveira and I planned together that we were going to make sure that President Pavan knew just how much we love this area, in hopes that he´ll leave us together for another transfer :) Haha....I think I must have told him 15 times during the interview that I love love love the area and I love SIster Oliveira even more!! haha...we´ll see if it works! After the interviews we had an amazing training by our district leader about New Years Resolutions and setting goals. We talked about how goals are nothing without a good and detailed plan to accomplish the goal. He quoted President Eyring and taught us that once you make a goal, it should become sacred for you and for Heavenly Father, and we need to do Everything in our power to make sure we accomplish what we decided to do. It was really inspiring and I´m feeling really excited for this new year here in Brazil. I know I am going to see and learn wonderful things and meet many more amazing friends!!! I love being a missionary.
The best day of the week was Sunday. I got to speak in sacrament meeting and it went really well. I spoke about Joseph Smith´s First Vision and how we should follow his example and set aside time every day to go to our own "sacred grove" and really converse with our Heavenly Father and receive revelation from him. And the best part of Sunday....we had a baptism!! Manoel´s baptism was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, but he decided to postpone it until Sunday because Daniel and Gisele Rocha (the family that introduced him to the church) had a last minute emergency. So we scheduled the baptism for 11:30...right after the sacrament meeting. It turned out to be a wonderful decision because almost everyone in the ward stayed to participate...including 4 of our investigators that were at church! There is nothing better than having an investigator feel the powerful and peaceful spirit that accompanies every baptism! :)
It was such a wonderful baptism! We had a problem with the water in the building and were only able to fill the tank halfway...but luckily Manoel is short. :) He was so happy! He had a huge smile on his face and a light in his eyes.... Sister Oliveira and I sang "O Senhor Meu Pastor È" ("The Lord is My Shepherd") and I felt so strongly the love and happiness that Heavenly Father has for Manoel and for each one of us! It was a wonderful wonderful day!
Haha...funny story of the week.... President Pavan called late Sunday night us to tell us he would be visiting our apartment early Monday morning, and in the hurry to clean our already clean apartment our beautiful big mirror feel off the shelf and shattered into a million pieces. We swept the glass into a box and laughing, I told Sister Oliveira to be ready for a day of bad luck that always follows breaking a mirror. I didn´t realize at that moment how true that statement was..... As I walked with Sister Oliveira to the trash room on the other side of the hallway of our apartment, we heard our door slam shut and we realized together that we had forgotten the keys!! It was 10:00 at night, we were already in pajamas and ready to sleep, no shoes, no cell phone, and without any phone numbers....and we were locked out!! Haha...luckily our neighbors are really nice and they helped us as we tried for almost an hour to unlock the door. Finally we called a "chaveiro" who came with his toolbox and opened the door in 2 seconds.....and then charged us 80 reiais!! Beleza....it could be a lot worse right? Well, the next day (yesterday) from the moment we woke up to the moment we went to sleep Everything went wrong!! Sister Oliveira´s money got swallowed by the ATM machine, our lunch appointment fell through, we went to Habib´s (an amazing Arabic fast food restaurant) and lost our receipt, a huge gust of wind broke Sister Oliveira´s umbrella, when she went to buy a new umbrella the umbrella broke in half in her hands (the lady in the shop wasn´t too happy), and finally an investigator gave us a huge bunch of yummy juicy grapes´....and mine was rotten and full of larva! Sigh....it was a very good feeling to enter our apartment last night knowing that our day of bad luck was over :)
But the blessings always follow the trials right? Haha...I´m ready for a wonderful new week here in Novo Hamburgo! I know it´s going to be a great one! I hope that you all are happy and doing well! I love you and you are always in my thoughts and in my prayers. Thanks for being a wonderful family and for always loving me and inspiring me to be better!
Love you!
Love, Sister Jamie Gee
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